EPTI was a douchebag of a kid. A bully in real life, in game I took to griefing and flaming. I was the kid who hid all his peons in the Garden of War after he had lost the game. I was the kid who refused to turn on allied victory in your "7v1 Compy Stompy" game as I constructed 12 dragon roosts in my base.
Later, I found out that actually winning games while yelling at your opponent could be even sweeter than just plain screaming. Warcraft III was my game, Lightknight69 was my hero. Combat-Ex? Deezer? They don't hold a bad mannered candle to LK69 and his partner, huk_you. Their deft "psychological warfare" inspired me. If you played me, you would be called a crackerous niggerfaggot. Repeatedly. In all caps. While the game was paused. As a Death Coil was flying toward your Archmage. No, you unpause the game. I have all day. I can piss in this Mountain Dew bottle; I don't give a fuck.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/xq09k.jpg)
Some would even argue that it improves the taste.
But I got older, and I mannered up. There was no epiphany; nobody made me see the error of my ways or kicked my ass or anything. I just stopped being such a jackass the further I got into my teenage years. By the time Starcraft 2 came out, high school was well behind me, and I don't think I had really BM'ed anyone. I called the iEchoic build "gay" once, but I believe that was justified because that damned Day[9] Daily fucked up the ladder for weeks. Other than that, though, I had been pretty nice, and people had been pretty nice to me.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/BPyEC.jpg)
Even people whose names could land them roles as villains in the Star Wars prequels were cheery.
However, you can only push a man so far before he snaps. I suppose I should explain just why the bronze league in particular was so damn frustrating. I mean, I've been flamed on the internet before, but generally the insults have had some basis in sanity. I could very well be a person who has sex with my mother. Or with men. Or with pigs. Or with nobody at all. Those are all things that exist, and I could very well be fucking them. So when somebody calls me a faggot, my brain can connect the dots. He's telling me that he thinks having sex with men is icky, and that I have sex with men, therefore making me icky. It's simple syllogistic logic that my mind can follow. The shit that gets flung at me in the bronze league is so far out of the realm of reality that I don't even know where to begin.
I guess I have to start with the fact that nobody should ever lose to a worker rush. Ever. It's a simple mathematical issue. By the time I get to my opponent's base, I will always have less workers than them.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/sfVY5.jpg)
I have modified this first grader's homework assignment to illustrate my point.
This fact bewilders people in the bronze league. That basic premise is what makes all BM received so confounding. It's all based around a premise that I'm doing some sort of awesome tactic. The only possible way I can win with my "strategy" is if my opponents find a way to fail (and damn, do they ever). It's normally pretty dumb when someone you just manhandled calls you a scrub, but it's infinitely worse when someone calls you bad immediately after you have beaten them with what may literally be the least effective strategy possible. It hurts one's brain to even think about it.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/pUFMT.jpg)
I know you are, but what am I?
Or worse yet, when they question your honor:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/bW224.jpg)
I thought "Non sibi sed patriae" was a good motto, but I guess "No Rush 15" is fine, too.
Or worse yet, when they call you a cheater:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/zj4D6.jpg)
Sometimes I regret asking questions.
Or worse yet, whatever this is:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/C7PKK.jpg)
In the "manic phase," sufferers of bipolar disorder will often convince themselves that they don't need to take their medication.
At first, I shrugged these off. They were sporadic and often humorous. Most people left without saying anything, or even left with a light hearted "lol." A surprising few even gave a "gg." Unfortunately, as my MMR continued its abyssal plunge, the amount of insanity increased. Bombarded by stupid on all sides, my first instinct was to just keep my head down and do nothing. As it continued though, I felt like I had to say something—like I needed to just inject a little seed of truth into the morass of failure that is the bottom of the NA ladder. So I attempted to reason with some of them. I thought maybe if I could touch one person with knowledge it could make the ladder a better place.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/F1SVZ.jpg)
OK, next time I'll make my drones sound a war trumpet before they attack so you have ample time to look at your base and react. I know you were probably too busy macroing at your, oh wait.
Like when people asked Destiny how to beat mass queens, he would reply "macro better," but they didn't want to listen. Instead they theorized stupid counter strategies like mass high templar/zealot. Similarly, when I explain to someone that all that is required to beat a worker rush is a pulse and an "A" key on their keyboard, they refuse to believe it, instead ascribing their failures to some sort of sinister tactic on my part.
So finally, frustrated, I gave in. I BMed.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/C8akJ.jpg)
It begins.
I just started typing shit. Soon it didn't matter if they had BMed me first, or second, or even said anything. I hurled EZs around; I demanded people leave the game. I called people retards; I told people to uninstall. Niggerfaggot made a lexical comeback. I was flaming bronze newbies, people literally new to the game. I was getting into flame wars and "owning" 12 year olds and Latin Americans with my default superior grasp of the English language. It was an even more pathetic BM than normal BM, because I was executing a strategy that only works on noobs, and if it failed I had a built in defense: It wasn't supposed to work. I was BMing with impunity in addition to anonymity. I even rematched a few bronze leaguers in a "real game," flaming them the whole time, knowing full well that they stood no chance against me. What was I doing? What the hell was wrong with me?
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/349d0.jpg)
I… I am.
Interlude: http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?id=272765
those are the gosus of tomorrow we need to take care of them!
